The present invention relates to a control system for a copier and, more particularly, to a control system for an electronic copier of the type having a monocolor or multicolor printing function, a combining function, a shifting function, a trimming function, a continuous printing function, a magnification changing function, and others.
A modern high-performance copier has various functions such as a monocolor or multicolor printing function, a combining function for printing images a plurality of times on a single paper, a shifting function for printing an image by shifting the display position of a document, a trimming function for printing only a part of a document, a continuous printing function for printing images of a plurality of objects carried on, for example, an A3 document on papers of smaller format than the document format by dividing the objects, and a magnification changing function for printing an image of a document by enlarging or reducing the image.
In a prior art copier of the type described, each of the functions is accomplished by setting data only once when it is not accompanied with another. To execute two different functions together, after an image has been printed out with data on the first function set, data on the other function is set to print out an image in the same paper. For example, in a combine mode which includes a trim mode and a shift mode, data for trimming or shifting is set, then an image is printed out, then another document data to be combined is set, then the data is printed out combined with the previous one. In this manner, data has to be registered by consecutive times of manipulation on a function-by-function basis. Such not only forces troublesome manipulations upon the operator but also frequency invites erroneous manipulation, faulty printing, and other undesirable occurrences.
Although a special mode capable of executing such settings at the same time may be proposed, it will never occur that after the first copying operation the same mode is needed, e.g., that after the trim mode has been set and executed, the same trimming data is set for the next mode. Hence, repeating the same mode would limit the user's editing and data correcting ability.
The Inventor has proposed a copier control system which promotes operability by, in a combine mode which includes data settings for trimming, shifting and others, allowing the first and second data settings to be effected at the same time (see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 073,749 filed July 15, 1987). Specifically, this system is executed by programming the contents of the first and second documents which are to be edited. In this case, when a masking area and a trimming area are deviated from each other, the trimming area has to be moved by a shift key. Such a system, however, has a drawback that a sequence of troublesome steps such as comparing a document to be masked and a document to be trimmed so as to grasp a distance of movement are needed, resulting in poor operability. In addition, should the distance of movement be inaccurately set, the chance for an image to be dislocated on a copy would be increased.
Further, since such a high performance copier is operated to reproduce a document image by changing the magnification to 110%, 100%, 94%, 78%, 64% or the like, the center of an image is unavoidably shifted based on the magnification selected. Also, the amount of shift is changed according to the magnification. This makes it difficult for the user to edit images because the position of an image to be printed out in a paper differs from that of an image printed in a document. For example, when the trim mode or the image shift mode is combined with the magnification change mode or when the combine mode is combined with the magnification change mode, even if a shift area is specified, the image is shifted by an amount which is produced by multiplying it by the magnification selected; converting the amount of shift to a specific one would make the editing work more difficult.